I like Mr. Smith, but he is so wrong. Naturally, I decided to persuade him of his error in thought. It didn't work, but I put up a hell of a persuasive argument.
An educated populace benefits the growth of the society. We pay taxes to maintain the whole of society. No taxes, then no roads, law enforcement, traffic signals, public buildings, fire departments--the list is lengthy. We don't get to choose where our taxes are spent. I've never been arrested nor a victim of a crime, if I follow Mr. Smith's line of thought, I should not have to support law enforcement. If one lives in society then one must support the functioning of that society. Not wanting your taxes to support education because you don't have any children is a libertarian notion whether one likes that label or not. Btw, I don't have any children either.
We pay for educating all children so that there will be a competent workforce to maintain the infrastructure that promotes the functioning of society. We pay for educating all children because poverty and marginalization are engendered by the lack of an education. We pay for educating all children because the mind needs nurturing as much as does the body.
Mr. Smith argues that if your child attends a private school, you also should be spared from paying taxes to support public education. However, no one has to pay taxes and private school education. It's a choice you make and it doesn't mean that you get to abdicate your responsibility to pay local taxes.
Generally, property and some sales taxes go to paying for public education, which is financed primarily by the individual states. Federal funding goes to Title 1 programs for children from low-wealth families, the free and reduced price lunch program, and to support some of the programs for children with disabilities who are identified as such under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act or IDEA.
The voucher movement bases its premise on the notion that they should receive vouchers equivalent to the Per Pupil Expenditure (PPE) that a state spends to educate students. The theory behind it is that the parents pay taxes but their children don't attend public school so they should get their money back in the form of vouchers. The amount of the vouchers would actually exceed the amount paid in taxes as education funding is provided not only from the money collected from property taxes and sales tax. Corporate taxes, fines collected in court cases, parking fines, and revenues from other sources all go into the state general fund, which in turn funds public education in that state.
PPE for the states ranges from a low of $6,000 in Utah to a high of $15,000 in Vermont in the most recent comparison of 50 states and the District of Columbia from the EPE Research Center's Education Counts Database. The national average for PPE is just under $10,000. Those who support vouchers are asking to be paid amounts equal to the PPE in their state because they don't believe that they should have to support public education as their darlings aren't in public school.
There are constant complaints on Facebook and in general about the lack of comprehension on the part of the American public when it comes to politics and government. Knowledge of core civics is so poor that there were folks on FB who questioned why President Obama didn't just pardon Troy Davis, who was convicted in a state court of committing murder in violation of state law. Such a pardon is not within the powers of the office of the President. Compared to other comparable countries and some that we consider far less developed than the U.S., our students show mediocre performance in math and science, and notoriously score poorly on standardized tests in U.S. History. (Test your knowledge of U.S. History by answering questions from the tests administered to students in grades 4, 8, and 12.)
Our public education system needs to be improved and held accountable. Check the education levels of any state prison and you will find a disproportionate number of inmates who never graduated from high school. Federal prisons are a bit different as they are filled with white collar criminals who have degrees but lack ethics. We continue to allow massive numbers of students to crash land between the cracks at our own peril. I'd prefer to have my taxes go to support public education; in the long run it's less costly than continuing to pay to maintain prisons (which also are supported with our taxes). We pay to support public education because we know that a poorly educated populace will be a future drain on the society rather than functional contributors to the growth and well-being of society. Providing a quality public education for every child benefits all members of society. (See, The Effect of Education on Crime, October 2003.)
We cannot afford to entertain the notion that some of us are less responsible than others for contributing financial support to public education. It's both shortsighted and selfish.
Capt. Fogg,
ReplyDeleteYou is right! It are very important that our children is edukated.
Valiant effort, but I fear you'll never get opponents to agree -- they're expressing a fundamental character trait (I believe the technical term in the DSM IV-TR is "stingy, narrow-minded expletive deleted"), not setting forth a genuine opinion.
It never occurs to these types that they are going to have to interact with the products of the educational system. That's because they live in some Randian fantasy-world that brackets out everything but their own selfish desires and self-centered calculations. Their place is between the red spiders and the black spiders, or some such Blakean location....
Dino, I'm flattered that you confused me with the good Captain,a fine writer and a man of sharp wit.
ReplyDeleteSheria,
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry about the confusion! I enjoyed the post but was right in the middle of updating some Shaxspere notes, so I misattributed.
I was privileged in attending a private preparatory school, one of the oldest in the country, but my parents paid their property taxes like everyone else. In those days, a private school education was considered ‘elective,’ and there was never any resentment or talk of receiving credits, tax rebates, or vouchers to offset the added expense of sending a kid to private school.
ReplyDeleteMy mother recounts conflicts within her own family when she won the Governor’s scholarship and became the first female of her generation - in a traditional and paternalistic family - to get a college education. For her, public education was, is, and shall always be the cornerstone of democracy - conferring equal opportunity to everyone regardless of class, ethnicity, gender, or circumstances. She retired after 24 years as a public school teacher, specifically as a learning disabilities specialist.
What happened in the last 30 years to change attitudes? Why is the idea of public education as a democratizing force now regarded as ‘socialism’ in certain kook circles? Is the concept of vouchers and special charter schools an attempt to circumvent advances in school integration, civil rights, and equal opportunity? And how will school vouchers improve public education by diverting scarce resources to private schools? It makes no sense and, frankly, arouses my suspicions. How will vouchers and special charter schools serve the interests of democracy and equality of opportunity when the implications smack of privilege that leads inevitably to a new kind of underclass?
Consider me old fashioned, but these trends run opposite to the values instilled in me by my family.
I don't know why there has been such a major shift in attitudes, Octo. I attended a parochial school from kindergarten through eighth grade, as did our other two siblings. Like your parents, mine paid tuition and taxes and never questioned it. My mother was also a teacher. She taught special needs students for 10 years and spent her last 15 years in the classroom as a kindergarten teacher.
ReplyDeleteI think that we have similar values; that's why we make such excellent siblings!
I also share your suspicions as to what's behind the values shift that has occurred.
Dino, no problem, I always enjoy being amused and your minor error made me laugh.
Funny timing. this appeared along with my annual property tax bill.
ReplyDeleteNo matter what one's ideas of right, wrong, fair or unfair might be, the property taxes one pays toward education (and remember we spend more than those countries whose students make ours look like Neanderthalers) can be galling. that's not because they are graduated or because I think graduated tax structures are unfair, but because they are graduated by certain property ownership and not by wealth or assets or income. Add a bathroom, pay more tax, buy a yacht? No problem. Have 30 million in the stock market? the tax man don't care.
The town with fewer bathrooms and bedrooms has worse schools because of this system while the towns with the big houses have better ones. I know some very wealthy people who live down here in multi-million dollar yachts and pay no property taxes at all and that piece of virgin woodland I own in Michigan far from any town requires me to support the educational system - far more now that it's be re-zoned residential even though nobody lives within miles of it or even has a farm there.
I would feel more comfortable about paying for that guy down the street with 8 kids and with a house less than half the size of mine if it came out of a State Income Tax - which of course, Florida does not have. And then, of course, we give people a tax break, albeit small, to have children. It's a bit like the reverse of Social Security or Medicare in that the less one pays in, the more one benefits from the system.
I'd simply like to see the burden placed more evenly even though I hate the idea of a wealth tax, it may be more equitable than taxing people who put money into their houses rather than into the market or other property.